10 Interesting Facts About Wales

Denis Foynes – Would you like to impress your friends with interesting facts from around the globe? Live and Invest Overseas News can help.

This is the series in which each week you can read ten facts about one of our destinations. This week we have beautiful Wales.

Here are ten facts about Wales

1. Like other countries in the UK, the people in the Wales can speak their own native language. More than 21% of the natives are able speak or read the Welsh language.

2. Mount Everest was named after Welsh surveyor and geographer Sir George Everest.

3. For a country of only 3 million people, Wales has produced many famous faces including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Christian Bale, Charlotte Church, Richard Burton, Sir Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, Shirley Bassey, and Tom Jones.

4. One town in Wales has a name is so long so that it is considered as the longest name of a place in the world. The town of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is a place located in North Wales.

5. Wales has not been politically independent since 1282, when it was conquered by King Edward I of England. However, in recent years, London has granted Wales increased control over issues such as spending and taxes.

6. The capital city, Cardiff was the first UK city to be twinned with a Chinese city, Xiamen in 1983. Today, Cardiff is also twinned with Stuttgart (Germany), Baltimore (USA), Nantes (France), Hordaland (Netherlands), and Lugansk (Ukraine).

7. Wales is believed to have more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world. It is also the land of the mythical King Arthur.

8. The last British person to die in WWI was a Welshman as was the last man to suffer capital punishment.

9. There are four times more sheep than people in Wales.

10. The Seven Wonders of Wales is a list of seven geographic and cultural landmarks in Wales, identified in the late 18th century in doggerel verse. All in North Wales, the “wonders” are: Snowdon (the highest mountain), the Gresford Bells (the bells in the medieval church of All Saints at Gresford), Llangollen Bridge in Flintshire, the Wrexham (Wrecsam) Steeple, the Overton Yew trees and Pistyll Rhaeadr waterfall. Be sure to check these places out if you are visiting.